I’m hoping to have at least one of the two pieces I’ve been working on for the book up today – either the one on Superman or the one on Mister Miracle. Possibly both. I’m *hoping* to have a finished draft of the book finished by tomorrow or Tuesday, and the book out within a week or so of that – I’d hoped to have it done by now, but I got a minor glandular infection, not bad enough to keep me from work, but bad enough to keep me from doing anything else, on Monday, and I’m only just over it. Expect a Proper Post in about five or six hours, and in the meantime, here’s some links.

ETA Superman post was completed, but posted as if it was last week, for some reason. Here it is

Phil Goetz has posted a rather lovely post-Singularity SF story at LessWrong.

The polls are showing that Labour are ahead in Old & Sad, but that the Lib Dems’ share of the vote has apparently dropped hardly at all, despite the national polls showing a huge drop-off.

Eddie Gilfoyle, a convicted murderer who has always proclaimed his innocence, has been released on license after eighteen years – but on condition he never talk about his case publicly, even through a third party. Whether he’s innocent or not I don’t know – I’m not familliar with the case. But whether he is or not, he should be able to make his case publicly.

An interesting experiment – people have managed to scan an old microchip well enough to emulate it without actually knowing its workings.

Mike Taylor talks about arbitrariness in storytelling, as it applies to recent Star Wars and Doctor Who compared to the original Star Wars film.

Jack Straw has recently argued that Pakistani men are more likely to rape white girls because of cultural differences. Chris Dillow shows that this is simply not true.

Comics Comics on Maus and the difference made by drawing at the size the image is printed at.

Lady Mark on the campaign to ‘close the tax gap’ and what it would actually entail.

The Skeptical Juror quotes G.K. Chesterton on juries.

Thousands of women have been systematically raped in Congo as a weapon of war, and this has gone largely unreported.

Slacktivist on playoffs and rocking chairs.

A list has been issued of the Doctor Who novels to be reissued this year – looks like all the Blum/Orman ones and all Lance Parkin’s (conveniently including The Gallifrey Chronicles, which I write about in my new book, and which is really good). If this is going to be a continuing thing, can I hope for a reissue of the books by Lawrence Miles, Simon Bucher-Jones and Paul Magrs soon?

And speaking of Doctor Who writers, Jac Rayner has started a blog looking at girls’ comics of the 70s. This is a neglected area of comics scholarship – especially since a lot of people like John Wagner and Pat Mills started their work on these things. Her tally of repeated motifs in stories so far reads “Tragic car crash: 2, Mysterious cursed object: 2 (Subsection ‘Mirror’: 1), Girl in a wheelchair: 2, Orphan: 2, Time travel: 1”